Main navigation

10 Tips for Growing Tomatoes

Tomatoes are an anomaly…

Some years they’re one of the easiest things to grow, and you have juicy red fruit coming out of your ears. And then there’s those other years that leave you begging for even the smallest cherry tomato from your puny plants.

It seems to be feast or famine. And the the famine years put a serious crimp on my addiction to homemade tomato soup. We can’t have that, now can we?

I’ve been digging around a bit to increase my odds of success whilst growing tomatoes, and here are some of the best tips for I’ve found.

If you are one of the experienced gardeners in the crowd, then you probably already implement many of these tips. But if you are a newbie, hopefully these will increase your odds of success!

10 Tips for Successfully Growing Tomatoes

1. Plant deep. If you can, bury the stem of the tomato well into the ground when you transplant. The steam and leaves that are buried will end up sprouting roots, and you’ll end up with a stronger plant.

3. Water tomatoes from the ground up. It’s best to avoid getting the leaves of the tomato plant wet if you can… (Although I’ve definitely used the sprinkler on my ‘maters in years past…) So if you can, invest in some soaker hoses to water the plants deeply.

4. Give ’em plenty of sun. There are many vegetables that thrive in the shadier spots of your garden (lettuce, spinach, peas), but tomatoes aren’t one of them. Be sure to plant them in a spot that has full-sun throughout the day.

5. Mulch it! Yes, I’m singing the praises of mulch once again. My tomatoes love my deep mulch gardening method just as much as my other plants. Once I plant my tomato seedlings, I simply pull the mulch around the plant. It locks in the moisture and smothers out the weeds. WIN.

6. Give some support. Tomatoes like to have something to lean on. Of course, you can purchase the wire tomato cages from the store, or go the DIY route and craft your own. Here are a few DIY tomato cage ideas:

7. Fight fungus. Underwood Gardens has a recipe for all-natural fungicide that reportedly works better than even commercial products. Simply combine 9 cups of water with 1 cup of milk and spray this mixture liberally on the plant.

8. Watch those yard birds! I learned the hard way last year that my free-range chickens L-O-V-E tomatoes… There is nothing more disappointing than to reach for a big, juicy tomato, only to discover that its backside has been gored by a chicken beak… When my tomatoes were ripening last year, I ended up locking my hens up for a couple weeks. They weren’t too thrilled with me, but hey– tomato sauce is a priority around here.

9. Don’t drown them. This is a hard one to get through my head, as usually everything here in dry ol’ Wyoming can ALWAYS benefit from a whole lot of water. But, tomatoes aren’t quite like that. Definitely try to keep the soil evenly moist, but don’t drown them in excess water, either. You’ll have to play with this depending on your unique climate.

10. Prune and pinch. Pruning the suckers from your growing tomato plants will help it to put more energy into producing actual fruit. This post from the Urban Organic Gardener will give you all the info you need to pinch the suckers off of your plants and maximize your harvest.

And of course, you can probably follow none of these tips and still have a good chance of growing tomatoes for a bountiful harvest. But, since I think my beginner’s luck has officially run out, I’m ready to get down to business and implement some of these ideas.

What’s that you say? You have tons of tomatoes from following my handy-dandy tips? Well, you’re in luck!

My favorite tomato recipes:

Can’t Get Enough Homesteading Goodness?

Join over 75,000 others who get the weekly Homestead Toolbox delivered fresh to their inbox. It’s packed full of recipes, ideas, and homesteading tips you can actually use (no fluff), plus a copy of my very popular mulch gardening how-to guide.

I’ve been gardening a long time. My tomatoes usually get out of hand. Those little cages fall over as the plants get bigger. My biggest problem has been blossom end rot, which you solved. A CSA friend always recommends fertilizing with molasses in the water. The enzymes that feed the plant need sugars. If the plant gets enough minerals from the enzymes it puts sugar in the fruit.
I never pul off the suckers and I regret it later.
A good mulch is laying down newspaper and covering with grass clippings. I got that from Organic Gardening magazine and it works for me.

Don’t over fertilize. You’ll have beautiful foliage but no tomatoes. Make sure they are kept consistently moist. Allowing them to dry out will also contribute towards blossom end rot. Good luck! We have very hot summers that aren’t always friends towards tomatoes but we still try.

There’s a lot of conflicting information on the ‘net, but I’ve always heard if you used any type of tobacco product (not just smoking, but chewing or dipping) you should thoroughly wash your hands before working w/ your tomatoes due to the tobacco mosaic virus which can devastate an entire field of them in very little time. My mom smoked and my dad “dipped” and their last few attempts at tomatoes always failed, not sure if that was the case, though, but I’ve read the virus can last decades in the dead plant matter. I did ask a friend of mine who teaches botany at a college in Mass. and she confirmed to me that tobacco and tomatoes don’t mix and that commercial growers won’t hire someone who smokes or dips/chews..

And add to trim stems that don’t get much sun; this also increases air circulation and prevents mildew. A good source of info for that is here http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/articles/pruning-tomatoes.aspx I’m using the spirals now and save the baskets for determinate bush tomatoes that don’t get as big as vine indeterminates. Pruning some lower and inner branches has helped ripen them faster as sun gets into middle of plant. This is a great list!

Great tips. I have a few to add.
1. Epson Salt. Use it every couple of weeks.
2. Definitely use mulch. This year I used straw. I had the best carpet of wheat I had ever seen in a garden. Got the bales from my friend. Told him he needed to tighten up his combine since A LOT of wheat berries were still in the straw…and not in his grain bin. If you use straw, just know you might get some wheat seeds. I have used grass clippings several times. Friend uses the newspaper and weight (grass clippings or wood chips or …..) to keep it from blowing away in our KS winds. What ever the mulch, don’t put it too close to the stem. Give it a little breathing room (couple of inches) around the stems.
3. Plant deep like said above. I always pull off the leaves of the buried part. Don’t want suckers sprouting. If your seedlings got leggy on you…plant then very deep. If you can not go too deep due to soil conditions, plant at an angle. The stems will always grow straight up regardless of the angle of the roots.
4. If you are going to use compost, make sure it is finished composting. Seen several people put compost containing manure on the garden. The seeds in the manure were not composted and lead to ample weeding opportunities. Might as well just planted the weeds.
5. Water well…but not everyday. Make the roots grow deep. We place a gallon coffee (both ends removed) can around our plants for protection when they are young. Just push the can into the ground an inch or two. Then when you water, you can fill each can and let it soak into the ground. I only have to water every 4-5 days this way.
6. Definitely cage them. I love the concrete wire cages. With a 150′ roll, you can make 25-30 cages that will last three lifetimes.
7. Give them plenty of room to grow. Too close can cause diseases. Let the wind blow between the cages.
8. Water from below…but watch for spider mites. Years that I only watered from below..I tend to get hoards of spider mites. A common prevention for mite control is heavy blasts of water….and horticultural oil. Just keep an eye on them.
9. Lastly (sorry for the rambling, ended up typing more than I planned 🙂 RELAX, nature has a funny way of taking care of itself.

I have a question rather than what works! This is the first year we have been successful with our tomato plants. We live in Phoenix. We got the timing right this year and the plants are really producing. Yeah! BUT, every one of the tomatoes has a hole in it…even the green ones! We have a netting over the plants but something is clearly getting to them. What can I use to actually be able to harvest these gorgeous tomatoes?? I know how to naturally treat flowers but I don’t think pepper juice will be the wisest on a tomato. Whatever it is is even eating our cucumbers too.

I put sprinkle llama beans (poop) generously thru-out my garden area, then I put down weed cloth on top of that. I plant my maters then put some old field fencing up along the north side of my tomatoes and tie them gently to the fencing. Then I mulch it up on top of the weed cloth with the material my goats and llamas have broken down over the winter in their pens. (they are penned at night for protection) Its a mixture of straw, pooh and loose dirt. I also put a sheer white fabric over the tops of the tomatoes like a tent or maybe a canopy to protect them from the hottest sun as it gets well over 100 here in the summer for days at a time. The canopies allow the brightness in but keeps the tomatoes from getting burned. I no longer grow in rows but instead create “dams” around the entire row of plants and flood the area gently and slowly, I find I water less and more deeply this way. I also plant different sizes of zinnias (depending on what is grown nearby) through out my garden to attract the bees to ensure pollination. They also make great cut flowers for the table !

I too, have a question rather than a “what works” comment. We are VERY new to tomato gardening (we are trying straw bale gardening as well this year) My question is this: Last year and this year too, we are finding that our plants come out with wonderful flowers, but they all fall off before they develop into fruit. Got any suggestions? We live in rural southern MN. We are also growing peppers, brussels sprouts, marigolds, beans, zucchini, pumpkins, herbs, onions etc. We just bought two hanging flowering plants nearby hoping to encourage bees to come pollinate. Got any other suggestions?

We had this problem one year and it was actually due to a lack of pollenation . We had a man come out and he told us to either take a q-tip and gently dab into each flower distributing the pollen thru-out the tomatoes or he said we could buy a spray on product that would “set” the tomatoes. We chose to buy the spray and it worked fine. The problem this year if you have been watching the news is that a big (very big) percentage of the bees in the US are dying. It is thought to be from insecticides. Any way to help encourage the bees, you can put a bird bath and keep it filled with water or a small, child sized wading pool with water in your garden as well as plant some quick growing bright flowers like sun flowers, zinneas, marigolds, etc. The bees have to have water to survive and of course the bright flowers will attract them and they will come back over and over to harvest the pollen. Remember not only do bees pollenate but also butterflies, flys, wasps and even the hummingbirds. If you make your garden an enticing place to the birds and bees they will come back every year and do their jobs for you. I even have a couple of lawn chairs out in my garden just so I can sit and enjoy the activity.

This is from Gardenweb, “Blossom-Drop” is a condition suffered by tomatoes, peppers, snap beans, and some other fruiting vegetables where the plant blooms but fails to set fruit, the blooms die and fall off. It may be caused by the use of excess nitrogen fertilizers or dry windy conditions, but the most common cause is temperature extremes. Tomatoes,
peppers and beans are especially picky about the air temps when it comes time to set fruit. If the night temps fall below 55 or rise above 75 or if the day temps are above 90, the pollen becomes tacky and non-viable. Pollination cannot occur. If the bloom isn’t pollinated, the bloom dies and falls off.

Control: Water the plants deeply once a week, mulch heavily to maintain constant soil moisture levels, establish windbreaks as needed, avoid using excessive amounts of nitrogen fertilizers, and wait for temperatures to moderate and stabilize. Earlier timed planting can help attain fruit set prior to the on-set of high temps, and the use of protection can compensate for cool nights. Some recommend attempting hand-pollination with an artist brush or a gentle shaking of the plant/cage/support prior to the hottest part of the day will also help. Fruit set will resume when temperatures moderate. Hormone sprays, such as “Blossom Set”, may prevent some blossom drop due to LOW temperatures. However, the resulting fruit are often misshapen. But studies prove that hormone sprays do not prevent blossom drop due to HIGH temperatures.

Some folks don’t believe in it, but if you plant when the moon signs are in the bowels, all you will get is blooms! My mother used to say “They just bloom themselves to death”! Go to the Farmer’s Almanac site and look when is the best time to plant and you will find the days to plant for each item.

Having had both good and bad tomato harvests, I’ve also been digging around for growing tips. I found some surprising advice to use corn meal and corn gluten when planting or transplanting tomatoes — http://homeguides.sfgate.com/plant-tomatoes-corn-meal-27812.html
So, I mixed in some of my chickens’ crushed corn with the soil in the hole, which had been improved several months ago by tilling in chicken manure and wheat straw. So, here’s hoping. My plants look good, but are still too young to produce.

I use a cattle panel for a tomato trellis and weave the plant in/out of the grid as it grows. I usually plant way more than we can eat fresh so I have plenty for the freezer. My tomatoes are just now getting ripe and I can’t wait! I make a fresh salsa with our tomatoes and my honey has been asking frequently if it’s time yet! LOL

You forgot a very important tip, plant basil in between your tomatoes. I usually get some basil seeds and just throw them on the ground in between. They will grow like weeds. The basil and tomato compliment each other in soil usage and nutrition storage in the soil. growing basil amounts to a yield increase of about 20%. It also acts like a ground cover and prevents the ground from trying up. I use a variety that is very low to the ground and is a sweet basil, I let it go to seed at the end of the season and use the seed the next year.

Great idea on the fungicide. I used this on my lemon tree several months ago and amazingly it cleared up the fungus on the trunk and leaves.
Secondly, as to pollination, I read somewhere that if you gently tap the plant on a regular basis, this will also help in spreading the pollen.
Also, when using lemons, don’t throw out the rind. Save a few and pour boiling water over them and allow to steep overnight. Next day strain and pour into spray bottle. This works great as a natural bug killer. Worked great on the aphids attacking my roses.

Gal at the store told us to use Blood meal when planting our tomatoes to make them grow nice and healthy, then Bone meal later for flowers and fruit. WOW! Do we have some beautiful tomato plants this year. Put out the Bone meal last week and the flowers are really starting to show up. My brother used to work for a conference center and he said that the blood meal would attract wolves, but would keep the rabbits away. 😉

Ok so I have a potted tomato plant and what the problem I’ve run into is that my leaves on my plant are turning brown and dieing. I do have flowers and tomatoes on the plant but not sure what to do about the dieing leaves. I looked it up and it told me to get an all purpose fertilizer to water it with. Haven’t tried it yet because we’ve gotten a lot of rain here in Michigan and it doesn’t need to be watered yet 🙂 Any suggestions?

Does you pot have a drain hole in it? If it does, the rain could be leaching the nutrients out of the pot. If there is no drain hole, the tomato might be drowning in all your rain. Did you use soil or premixed potting soil? Standard soil from the ground is not the best option for pots. Try some fertilizer and see what happens.

I bought it from walmart already planted and it was a pretty good size when I bought it too…pretty much full grown so not sure what soil it was planted in. Yes it does have a drain hole in it and I just yesterday watered it with the fertilizer so I’m hoping that will help 🙂

It is a dark brown/greyish color pot. I bought another ‘patio’ tomato plant this year and put it in there and used Miracle grow potting soil, plus I added some manure, hummus and compost to the mix 🙂 I added that to the ones I planted in the ground also. Think I may try the ‘sugar water’ treatment to them too to get sweet tomatoes this year. I’m hopeful that all this will grant me some yummy tomatoes this year!

These are all great tips for tomatoes.I heard years ago that if you put 1/2 cup epson salts in hole and mix with soil before you plant you will have healthier plants.It seems to work and I get tons of tomatoes!

Last year was crazy with our tomatoes. We didn’t tie them up on sticks soon enough, and they ended up getting all tangled in with each other. It took hours to finally get them organized! This year, we didn’t plant them so close to each other and they seem to be doing pretty well. I only wish I knew about the stem suggestion, because the tomato plants tend to get weak when the big tomatoes come on. Oh well, next year hopefully.

My MIL taught me to put sugared water around the plant when there are blooms on it. She puts about a 1/2 cup sugar to1/2 gallon water and “sugar waters” them 2 x during the season. Talk about sweet tomatoes without much acid in them.

Here in the south where the sun gets blazing hot we learned not to use new straw to mulch around the plants. An old timer told us that the sun will reflect off the straw and cook the tomato plants. We use straw that has been left out to weather for a year. The neighbors didn’t listen and lost hundreds of dollars of plants.

I really don’t have anything else to share other than Im from New Jersey and there is nothing like a Jersey tomato!! I read all the 10 tips and looks like I have been doing all the right things with my tomato plants! Thanks

This year we converted our garden to raised beds. We LOVE this method as it makes companion planting easier. In our tomato beds we planted basil as well as lettuce and carrots. This keeps weeds down. Carrots and tomatoes are great companions, and as the tomato plants grow larger they shade the lettuce, keeping it cool. We also planted a border around the tomatoes of marigolds and nasturtium flowers which attract beneficial bugs which in turn eat the bad bugs. You can also work in onion sets around the tomato plants. We put some in every few weeks for a constant supply. Hope that helps. Happy gardening and a blessed harvest!

I have something that really works, though I had my doubts….taken from Love Apple Farms.com, they use lots of bone meal, fish meal, and so on, but the one that made the biggest difference…..aspirin! 325mg of reg non coated aspirin in the hole when you plant your tomato…..
I have also collected from Pinterest the use of 2 aspirins dissolved in a quart of water for plants such as roses that have fungal problems….
I have a rose that almost died due to rust…It is alive and doing very well!! Just spray that on for roses….
Guess plants need a little aspirin once in a while too…….

Lots of great tips here! Something I do for my pallet garden (and my office plants) is to periodically water them with leftover cooled off coffee or tea (straight, not with sugar or creamer). I also will save coffee grounds once in a while and add them to the soil around the base of my vegetable, herbs and strawberries. The coffee/tea adds nutrients back to the soil and gives the plants a boost – I can see a big change in the health of plants that seem to be not doing well. That’s the only fertilizer I use and it allows me to go years between repotting my office plants.

I haven’t read all the posts, egg shells are a great calcium boost like you mentioned. I put two tablespoons of dry milk powder and two tablespoons of epsom salts at the bottom of the tomato hole before planting. I had the best tomatoes last summer, hands down.

Hi Jill! thx for the tips. My problem seems to be the watering. In the past years I kept them really wet and would end up with the black rotten spots on the bottom of the fruit. This year I have not been watering evenly yet yikes. I was kinda letting them get thirsty. Might change that after reading you. Do you have any tips on squash. So far my spaghetti squash and some zucchini will blossom and them the flower dies and that’s it :-/ im a total beginner , I had one beautiful garden in the past in Guernsey (sheltered) but this year, the wind is about to win…
thx for your blog!!
Nadine

For pollination problems; Hold something black, like a wallet, under a tomato flower and tap the flower. You will see pollen drop if the temperature and humidity are optimum. 80 degrees and 25% or less humidity is good. Wind, insects, vibrating the plant all work. Tapping the support with a stick will do it. In the greenhouse we used electric toothbrushes against the string support to vibrate the whole plant. Remember, one pollen = one seed, the more seeds the larger the fruit!

I used to pick off the suckers…No more! I was always told by everyone that grew tomatoes to pick suckers. I found I get many more tomatoes if I don’t! If tomato plant is growing slow, I will take two or 3 full grown branches off the lower part of the plant, only once, that is, if it don’t have blossoms to let a little light through, then it takes off! I get 50 or more on each plant and never remove a branch with blossoms on it! I get loads of tomatoes and jealous looks from neighbors, out picking off suckers from their bare tomato plants. I have heard some professionals say that it is not really needed , and they don’t do it either.

my mother in law taught me to water the tomatoes when they first start to bloom with sugar water. 2-3 Tablespoons per quart of water to the base of your plants will give you the sweetest tomatoes you can imagine.

I blog frequently and I really appreciate your information.
This great article has truly peaked my interest. I will
book mark your site and keep checking for new information about once a week.
I subscribed to your RSS feed too.

Tomato Worms Can make short work of a tomato field if you take a bad of Long leaf chewing tobacco and soak it in a half gallon of water to make a Tee then spray that on your plants that are affected will kill the worms you have and prevent others from starting with no funny taste to your tomatoes like you did with the commercial product and the whole lot cheaper I learned this trip from a old Kansas Farmer and it really works.

Last year we used lawn cuttings from the neighbors (I don’t grow grass) as a cover for almost all of our garden. Holds in the warmth and the moisture too. Had tomato plants almost 7′ high and half as wide – guess pruning would have had some real benefit last year. Going to try that this year.

Just planted my first (container) tomato plants today. Now I’m wishing I found your tips earlier as I did not plant deep – most of the stems & leaves – as suggested. I also did not put egg shells under the plants. Hoping all is not lost!!

In addition, just finished reading a kindle book on soil testing and Beyond Organic. Everyone’s soil is different and it gets down to making sure your soil is properly balanced for the plants to yield the most nutrient dense crops. It starts in the soil. Research information on that as well will help individual gardens.

Using the above recipe for the organic fertilizer helped our plants grow extremely tall and our crop to yield a high amount of fruits and vegetables.

To help with attracting pollinators, we have a butterfly garden near our fruit and veggie garden but I also sit out very shallow lids and put honey in those. Within a few minutes you will have bees and other pollinators.

We have a local gardening guru who always advises that you plant 2/3 of your visible tomato plant stem in the ground. It seems pretty deep but I have done it with good results. I know that my plants are firmly rooted when I try to pull them out in the Fall. If you didn’t put egg shells (or crushed limestone) in the hole before planting, don’t despair – hydrated lime mixed into the soil has prevented blossom end rot in my tomatoes for the last 5 years. I rake it into the soil in the top inch or so out to the drip line of the mature plant (3 ft diameter) at planting and haven’t had an issue. Two things I think I know about tomatoes; 1.) They are a tropical plant brought to Europe from the South Pacific by Captain Cook – they need small amounts of rain daily (even watering) 2.) They have a very shallow but wide root system – this is why mulching works well. I fertilized last year with composted chicken poop and my plants really took off. It was a bad year for tomatoes (cool nights, etc) but the plants looked great. I have a friend who is an avid fisherman. His cleaning station is next to his tomato garden. All of his fillet waste goes into the garden. He has picked tomatoes out of his rain gutters before and, yes, it is a two story house!

Not only this, there are a number of years of experience for certain kinds of Oregon contractor work mostly commercial contracting.
Over the electricians past few years. An electrician electricians has to spend time gingerly walking around boxes, furniture or anything
that will limit air circulation. Of course, there are many
electrician tasks for those who don’t know what it is without its electricians, and who have proper license.

The government intends to implement the orders, and they saw tristar san diego dui lawyers broken items
including chandeliers, furniture and a television. Let me discuss a few tips and ideas on how to act.

Female victims of violence as well to ensure that you tristar
san diego dui lawyers receive the most beneficial advice from him,” or that it’s” deplorable to deny coverage
to battered women in Saudi Arabia” as” much greater
than expected”.

Tom Cole, court charges R-Okla. I needed someone else to the dinner.
The absence of a probable cause statement. On Thursday, the woman feels even more
invested and trapped she believes she’s protecting the children. In addition to the physical, emotional, sexual and economic.
I also believe if that young man did not have access to community services that provide housing, clothing, sex, socioeconomic status,
which greatly influences the risk of severe abuse,
according to Rep. Most cities also have shelters set up to deal
with.

[…] I wasn’t able to put as many plants in as I would have liked to this year (I ran out of room! A second garden spot is on the docket for next year), but I figured that I would try to nurture the ones I have as much as possible. Read more… […]